Avaya said implementations of its Fabric Connect data center solution grew 100 percent this year, a jump it attributed, at least in part, to Fabric Connect being a natural complement to SDN overlay solutions like VMware NSX.

The change, the company says, reflects its evolution from a pure reseller of network hardware -- and, really, of Cisco's network hardware -- into an end-to-end infrastructure and services solution provider.

Solution providers have a chance to nab a piece of the $19 trillion in business the Internet of Things is expected to generate. Cisco Vice President Andrew Sage outlined five tactics he thinks partners need to succeed.

VMware and Cisco are locked in a ferocious battle for the software-defined networking market. In separate interviews with an executive from each company, CRN digs into the sharply divergent paths the companies are taking in their quest for SDN supremacy.